An Apology and Good-bye

by J. Orlin Grabbe

Well, too much of a good joke becomes tiresome, so
I've decided to make my apologies and to say good-bye. The
many skeptics are correct. There never was a Fifth Column.
The Angel of Death (AOD) is a myth created by Charles
Hayes and myself for our own amusement: We've had a great
many laughs watching Jim Norman struggle to create stories
from the concept. But in fact none of those more than fifty
politicians who have resigned this year have resigned because
they received packets of information from any Fifth Column--
packets detailing their personal financial shenanigans like the
taking of bribes, kickbacks, and payoffs--not even Toby Roth
of Wisconsin (and Roth certainly was never a member of any
pedophile ring). No, their resignations have all been due to
the reasons stated: to spend more time with their families, or
because it's no longer fun being a politician here at the close
of the Twentieth Century.

Bill Clinton was never a CIA agent, as I claimed in the
Vince Foster series, part 10, and again in part 29. I just made
this up, and the story got so out of hand that Roger Morris
repeats this canard in his new book Partners in Power.
Cord Meyer did not recruit Bill Clinton for the CIA, and I
have not spent hours talking with Clinton's subsequent CIA
controller.

To all those who have written me letters of support,
let me say: What a bunch of suckers! You people are going
to be stuck with four more years of Bill Clinton, so get used to
it, rubes. The Fifth Column hasn't been helping out Kenneth
Starr--Starr got all those documents, including the ones on Jim
Guy Tucker, from David Hale. Well, Hale's documents have
run out, and there ain't going to be no more convictions.
Starr's star has fizzled. (Starr was bought and paid for long
ago. After all, he didn't even bother to answer Debra von
Trapp's letter on the Oklahoma bombing.) Some of you I told
privately about that Clinton cocaine tape Starr has, and maybe
one or two others about those bonds Hillary has stashed in
Luxembourg. Jesus, you guys are gullible.

Poor Vince Foster. I am truly sorry about
besmirching his name, especially about those tales about
turning over U.S. secrets to the Israelis. The very idea that
Israelis would spy on the U.S., or wouldn't be able to get such
secrets for free! Foster never did anything wrong in his life,
except perhaps for hiring Bob Livingstone: Foster died
because he was too good for Washington, too good for public
life. Both Jim Norman and I knew from the beginning that
Bob Bartley of the Wall Street Journal killed him. But here is
how the story of Hillary's and Foster's Mossad contacts
came about. Mike McCurry of the White House calls me
once a week to discuss strategy and to tell me how to
proceed, and we simply lifted the story from Jim Norman's
original memo to the White House. We figured we would
suck in all those anti-semitic right-winger militia types before
we let them crash and burn. But we were wrong. Apparently
someone discovered that my brother Lester was the author of
the standard two-volume research handbook Judaism from
Cyrus to Hadrian. They apparently were able to determine
that I was secretly sucking up to the Mossad all along.

And of course we were hindered also because
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was a relentless critic of Jim
Norman's Fostergate story. I've told numerous friends that
AEP's lack of objectivity comes from his being consumed by
jealousy over Jim Norman's research and sources. But the
truth is the reverse: Jim Norman has always been consumed
with jealousy over AEP, even when AEP was getting all that
disinformation from Clarence Harp: Norman was jealous he
hadn't found Harp first.

And Colby? That Colby ever heard of Norman or
myself is a totally ridiculous idea. I just wanted to aggrandize
the two of us, by placing us at the center of a conspiracy
involving every little newsworthy incident that managed to
evoke a little mystery. Get real, right-wingers! Colby was an
old man and fell off his boat and drowned. He was also a
noble patriot who had tried to right much of what is wrong
with this country, and would certainly be a candidate for the
head of the Fifth Column if any such group actually existed.

And you Republicans are stuck with Bob Dole, who
is going to lose the election for you! Ha, ha, ha! Except of
course if he gets Colin Powell to run with him. Dole got a
Fifth Column packet that induced him to resign from the
Senate? Ridiculous! Of course he would resign the majority
leadership to better run a campaign everyone assumes he can't
win. He's consumed with the desire to be President, damn it!
And Powell, Powell get a packet? Hell, he's the hero of the
Gulf War! He's an example for every black man in America!
The notion that Colin Powell might be filled with greed enough
to sell out his country is a subversive Communist thought, and
anyone who believes he might be capable of such a thing
should be ashamed of himself.

Then there is Bush. That little blurb about George
Bush in Some Observations on the Non-News was a lot of
fun. Mike McCurry and I laughed our heads off about that.
We made it up with the intention of showing that the Fifth
Column's activities were about political corruption, not about
partisan politics, and that no one of either party--no matter
how high up --was exempt. Well, it served that purpose, but
also smeared a Republican! Nope, George Bush never had a
$75 million account at the Union Bank of Switzerland to be
cleaned out in the first place. I mean, do you idiots really
think George Bush is rich? Bush deal in arms? Bush deal in
drugs? Let's get real: ex-Presidents don't do those things.

The very idea of drugs in Montana! The nearest thing
seen to drugs in Montana recently is some teenagers who tried
to get high smoking horse manure. Well, how about it you
dumb right-wingers? You haven't seen the Governor of
Montana indicted yet, have you? Hell, if it didn't happen in a
day or two, that should have told you there was nothing to the
story! But the bigger the lie the bigger the Con: I got all sort
of letters from Montana after posting Some Observations on
the Non-News claiming that the body count was approaching
Mena proportions, claiming that this or that local official or
police department was running drugs. It demonstrates the
P.T. Barnum effect: Just make up anything, and even the
people concerned will believe it. Montana is full of paranoid
schizophrenics, not to mention right-wing nuts.

The whole Montana charade was an attempt on my
part to divert attention from the Mena operation, to help out
the CIA and the Mossad. But it hasn't seemed to do any
good. No matter how hard I try, John Deutch still won't offer
me a job. I'm sorry about those bad things I said about you,
John, but that was supposed to be part of my cover. You
know, give me credibility by attacking the CIA like those
journalists you have on stipend? I'm sorry I didn't make it
clear. And you mislead me on that Ron Brown thing. You
told me there was a bomb on board. Well, the Air Force
issued its report, and there weren't no bomb. And we know
the Air Force, unlike the CIA, never lies. So you can keep
your old job--I'm no longer interested.

Poor Jackson Stephens. Stephens is one of the finest
billionaires this country has ever produced, and the notion that
he would hire assassins is ludicrous. But I had some rubes
going there for a while. And Richard Mellon Scaife. Hell, the
Sarah Scaife Foundation donates to the CATO Institute, a
libertarian think tank I have supported for a decade and a half.
You think I was serious about Scaife's goons messing with the
car Charles Hayes, Jim Norman, and I were riding about in
Pittsburgh? Well, we were actually coming back from a
dinner with Marianne Gasior, who is noted for helping get
Kennametal convicted for money laundering and dealing with
Iraq during the Gulf War. I just made up the story to feed her
paranoia that elements of the Pittsburgh nuclear network were
following her.

I also want to apologize to other friends I've mislead
(though you deserve it, for being so stupid). These are too
numerous to mention. Like that secret Pentagon report about
which I said I personally knew both bomb experts involved,
and that there were five bombs in the Oklahoma City
bombing. I just took General Partin's report of four bombs,
and threw in an extra one to take care of column B3, and
sucked some people in who thought it accorded more with the
laws of physics than with the veracity of government
witnesses. And it is not, repeat not, true that subpoenas are
out for the two experts to appear at the OK bombing trial.

Well, that's enough confession. If you believed
anything I posted, it was your problem, your desire to believe.

Yes, better get used to it. Things never change. You
right-wingers (and left ones too) are going to be stuck with the
Clintons for four more years. And I myself am looking
forward to it, or else nothing in this article is true.